Restored to Glory
Juliet Roberts vists Trentham Park
LIKE many large historic estates, Trentham, on the southern edges of Stokeon-Trent in Staffordshire, has witnessed numerous changes. It is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 and over the years has been the site of an Augustinian priory, a convent, a royal manor and variously styled country homes.
The 300-acre parkland and gardens in particular have undergone a fair amount of change, and the latest reinvention is arguably the most beautiful and forward thinking yet.
With three world-class designers involved and one of the largest examples of contemporary naturalistic perennial planting in Europe, it was undoubtedly – as designer and writer James Alexander-Sinclair stated in
The Telegraph: “the garden makeover of the decade”.
Initially laid out in the 16th century, the gardens were developed in several layers – the most prominent designs were first by Charles Bridgeman (circa 1719-25), then Lancelot “Capability” Brown (circa 1759) and in the 19th century (circa 1834-47) by Sir Charles Barry and William Nesfield.
Barry had been commissioned by George Granville, the 2nd Duke of Sutherland, to remodel Trentham Hall (1833-42) and, as with the buildings, the garden was monumental in scale and endeavour. Barry created a vast, formal, Italian-style parterre with wide pathways, symmetrical flower beds and elegant fountains leading down to the mile-long lake at the centre of the garden with the river Trent running closely alongside it. Interestingly, the garden created differed substantially from his design and probably reflects significant input from both Nesfield and the pre-eminent head gardener of the time, George Fleming.
The lake, the woodlands and much of the surrounding landscape were designed by Capability Brown, who was renowned for his ability to turn nondescript landscape into gloriously picturesque parkland.
However, around 1900 the Sutherlands moved out because the rapid expansion of the local pottery factories had so polluted the river Trent which fed the lake that the entire estate began to smell very unpleasant. Despite rerouting the river to bypass the lake, the main house was demolished in 1912. Today, all that remains of this once elaborate set of buildings is the 100ft-tall clock tower and the sculpture gallery (in the northern-most part of the Eastern Pleasure Ground).
The family retained and kept the estate in good order until around
1972. However, subsequent owners were not so mindful and by the mid 1990s it was in a sad state of neglect and decay. Apart from an incredible bronze of Perseus by the lake and a colossal statue of the 1st Duke of Sutherland, which still stands proudly on a hill at the south end of the lake, pretty much all of the original architectural ornament was missing, and the big Irish yews that had been planted to replicate pencil-thin cypress (characteristic of Italian gardens) had reached a fat 8m across, obscuring the view across the lake and would have been better suited to a graveyard.
“At the time the gardens were created, the Sutherlands were the richest family in Britain. They had astronomical wealth,” landscape architect and multi Chelsea goldmedal winner Tom Stuart-Smith explains. Tom first became involved in Trentham more than 25 years ago by which time St Modwen Properties PLC had bought it.
The property developer’s ambition was to turn the whole site into a leisure destination and Tom was initially called in to advise about planning permission. In 1998 he was appointed to oversee the development of the historic landscape and gardens.
“The Victorian scheme at Trentham was a vast display of control and grandeur, which today would be quite off-putting,” Tom says. “For the garden’s reinvention I was clear that the historic character had to shine but it had to be a contemporary interpretation both for reasons of sustainability and to excite the
visitors. My intention was to find a way to retain its grand formality but to subvert the subtext by making the planting the exact opposite.”
So instead of recreating the
Victorian scheme of high maintenance, rigidly laid out, brightly coloured bedding plants, Tom created an exuberant, ecologically inspired display of in excess of 100,000 perennials and bulbs. Repetition of
plants and plant types ensures there’s a sense of cohesion to such a huge, asymmetric design. As a nod to the important role the river Trent has played it the estate and the entire region, Tom has planted a web of tall grasses across the entire parterre to represent a scaled down version of the river Trent and its tributaries extending out across the midlands.
Tom decided early on that if the
gardens were to thrive they needed more than one hand involved in the design, so persuaded Piet Oudolf to meet and engaged him in the project.
“He was not so galactically busy as he is now,” Tom explains. Piet’s initial remit was to design the planting for two borders either side of the Italian garden, both around 100m long and 3-4m deep. (Tom jokingly refers to his own planting of the parterre as the
“filling in an Oudolf sandwich”.) Piet then went on to develop the 4-5-acre areas between the lake and the Italian garden, east of the Pleasure Ground.
“It’s a garden of two halves, the first is quite a graphic pattern with a series of spaces connected by pathways and small lawns, called the Floral Labyrinth, then there’s a huge meadow of molinia grasses interplanted with iris and astilbe, named the Rivers of Grass. Rather like a moorland, it’s expansive and beautiful,” Tom says.
However, no matter how thoughtfully designed a garden is, a good head gardener is essential to nurture and develop it. Fortunately, Michael Walker, formerly gardens
manager for Lord Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, was appointed at the beginning of the garden’s transformation. He remained for 16 years, latterly with overall responsibility for the garden and lake, before leaving to set up his own freelance consultancy business.
It was through Michael that Professor Nigel Dunnett became involved. Nigel, one of the principal design and horticultural consultants for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, is renowned for his innovative approach to sustainable, biodiversity-enhancing plantings. At Trentham he has introduced around 3km of annual and perennial meadow around the edge of the lake, which is arguably the longest sequencer of linked naturalistic plantings anywhere in the UK.
“In Victorian times the garden would have been prim and tidy in winter and now, in contrast, it’s a rather wonderful sea of devastation,” Tom says.
The estate, too, has returned to having an epic quality, with an almost overwhelming choice of things to see and do whatever the weather. There’s an ever-evolving display of show gardens, a wire fairy sculpture trail,
children’s adventure playground with the UK’s first barefoot walk, a family-friendly maze and lake-side walk with seasonal boat and train trips. In the wider estate you’ll also find a Monkey Forest, Treetop Adventure and Trentham Shopping Village with 50 shops and 14 cafés.
Trentham has ended up being a large-scale leisure destination as St Modwen’s intended. However, what sets it apart is the company’s understanding of the complexity and depth of the garden’s historic significance. The areas created by the three designers work cohesively and the new plantings acknowledge the past but also respond to current threats from plant disease and climate change.
It seems they have followed Sir Charles Barry’s footsteps by creating a garden that is highly innovative and horticulturally trend setting on the grandest scale imaginable.
MORE INFORMATION
The Trentham Estate, Stone Road, Trentham, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST4 8JG
Pre-book your visit at trentham.co.uk or by calling
01782 646646